What you're dealing with here is a complicated question that isn't going to be completely answered within the context of a Livejournal post, if in fact it can be answered at all. I will state, for the record, that I am a cisgendered white woman of Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage, and that I am not familiar with the source material, so I am speaking in a general way, not specific to this particular text.
So, at my job, race is a fundamental fact of life. Working where I do, I have been forced to personally confront my own white privilege and occasionally racist assumptions. None of us likes to think that we're racists, because we're good people, but I am personally of the opinion that most white people (esp. white people from our background, which while not entirely white-washed, was not exactly the most diverse) carry with them unconscious racist assumptions. This is part of what it means to have white privilege.
And I would argue that I, as a white person, have an obligation to educate myself on matters of racism and cultural imperialism/appropriation and to actively listen when PoC tell me about their experiences. And when I listen? I get angry. Because racism and discrimination are real and the are stupid and they make me angry. Do I ask my black coworkers questions sometimes? Yes. But I try to phrase them in ways that indicate that I know one black woman does not speak for all black women and that I am open to the answer. We do not progress along the road to understanding by sticking our fingers in our ears when we don't like what we hear. Criticism cannot be constructive if we refuse to acknowledge its validity and instead leap immediately to our own defense. It does not matter if a person means to give offense, it matters that offense was given. I will forgive people for saying/doing things I don't like, but I do expect that once they know I don't like something, they will endeavor to avoid that behavior. So when white people ignorantly and mostly innocently do things that offend people of color, it behooves them to actively listen to how and why offense was taken. This is how we make progress. Racism frequently exists in places where white people do not see it, in fact, that is how it persists, in subtle, nearly invisible ways, just as sexism does. And just as it is frustrating for a woman to see glaring sexism where a man sees nothing wrong, it is frustrating for people of color to experience racism where white people see nothing wrong.
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So, at my job, race is a fundamental fact of life. Working where I do, I have been forced to personally confront my own white privilege and occasionally racist assumptions. None of us likes to think that we're racists, because we're good people, but I am personally of the opinion that most white people (esp. white people from our background, which while not entirely white-washed, was not exactly the most diverse) carry with them unconscious racist assumptions. This is part of what it means to have white privilege.
And I would argue that I, as a white person, have an obligation to educate myself on matters of racism and cultural imperialism/appropriation and to actively listen when PoC tell me about their experiences. And when I listen? I get angry. Because racism and discrimination are real and the are stupid and they make me angry.
Do I ask my black coworkers questions sometimes? Yes. But I try to phrase them in ways that indicate that I know one black woman does not speak for all black women and that I am open to the answer. We do not progress along the road to understanding by sticking our fingers in our ears when we don't like what we hear. Criticism cannot be constructive if we refuse to acknowledge its validity and instead leap immediately to our own defense.
It does not matter if a person means to give offense, it matters that offense was given. I will forgive people for saying/doing things I don't like, but I do expect that once they know I don't like something, they will endeavor to avoid that behavior. So when white people ignorantly and mostly innocently do things that offend people of color, it behooves them to actively listen to how and why offense was taken. This is how we make progress.
Racism frequently exists in places where white people do not see it, in fact, that is how it persists, in subtle, nearly invisible ways, just as sexism does. And just as it is frustrating for a woman to see glaring sexism where a man sees nothing wrong, it is frustrating for people of color to experience racism where white people see nothing wrong.